Subject:
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Re: Target Exclusive Trains On Clearance
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Fri, 13 Dec 2002 16:08:40 GMT
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Viewed:
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1435 times
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On Fri, 13 Dec 2002, Bryan Kinkel wrote:
> I have mixed feelings about the clearance. The prices are great.
>
> But it seems these sets were marked down very, very early in their shelf
> life. Does this indicate a failure of the My Own Train line at retail?
> Or could this simply be Target management moving merchandise as rapidly
> as they can?
I've wondered the same sorts of things about Target. What I particularly
remember is that last spring/summer Target had the Tantive IV and the Yoda
sculpture, and clearanced them quickly. In that case it was great to see
big sets in the stores, but the clearancing was disturbing; it was as if
Target wanted to get rid of them as soon as the Episode II hype was over,
while ignoring the realities that a) these were classic Star Wars sets,
not Ep II toys and b) the market for these sets is teenage and older Star
Wars and Lego fanatics---a population that might well *receive* these sets
for Christmas, but whose spending power would be most diluted during May
and June (the big release of SW and SW Lego items). So Target clearanced
them well before the Christmas season, which is the only time that I would
expect these big ticket items to sell well.[1]
Similarly, here we have a great thing (good train sets available at
retail), and Target starts clearancing them at an early time. Why do deep
price cuts before Christmas? I realize that people shop around, but at
retail these are Target exclusives, and Christmas shopping season would be
when people are most willing to pay for the larger sets and have the least
time/energy/knowledge to shop around. Unless Target bumps the price
again, it seems to me that they will be taking a big relative loss over
the next two weeks as last-minute shoppers who would willingly buy these
get them for less (while competing for limited stocks with people who
would not buy at the higher price point).
The problem I'm seeing here is that Target is taking a chance by stocking
rarer, more expensive sets (that we like to see in stores) but then their
clearancing strategy makes those sets look like losers. Now Target's
purchasing people can say "Well, we stocked a $200 Lego set, but it was
such a dog we had to clearance it to 50% to move it" (ignoring the fact
that they refused to keep it on the shelves until it might be expected to
sell---i.e., December) or "We've tried stocking Lego trains, but they
couldn't sell until we cut off our markup" (again ignoring issues of
seasonal timing).
--
TWS Garrison
http://www.math.purdue.edu/~tgarriso/
Remove capital letters in address for direct reply.
[1] This isn't just Target, btw; one of the two Lafayette area Wal-Marts
also clearanced their Yodas when they did their pre-Christmas reset.
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Target Exclusive Trains On Clearance
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| I believe, that in general, if a new product does not move in a few weeks, Target will blow it out. I think this is a great strategy by Target. I'm no retail expert, but I think selling a slow moving item at a cut price and getting fresh stock on (...) (22 years ago, 13-Dec-02, to lugnet.market.theory)
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